Kingston M.2 120GB SSD Review

Overview

As you may have seen in our recent Z97 motherboard reviews we have been using a new, rather special bit of technology. This has been made possible by our friends over at Kingston Technology, because they have allowed us early access to one of their new M.2 Drives. What we have here is a Kingston M.2 120GB SSD (SM2280S3/120G), what’s M.2 you may well ask, well I’ll try to explain…

M.2 is basically a replacement of mSATA, something we have been very keen on over the last 12 months and that was an especially useful feature aboard our favorite Z87 motherboard the MSI Z87-G45 GAMING. Basically these drives (both the outgoing mSATA and the incoming M.2) can be simply described as extremely small SSDs.

The good news is that with the advent of M.2 these drives now can support transfer speeds up to 10GB/s via a new CPIe interface, impressive stuff. This Kingston 120GB SATA variant features a Read speed of 550GB/s and a Write speed of 520GB/s.

There’s not much to see when looking at these devices, as to be honest there pretty dull. This particular M.2 2280 device is 22mm wide and 80mm in length.

At the time of writing the Kingston M.2 120GB SSD is retailing for around £65 and comes with a 3 year warranty.

Testing Methodology/Setup

The test bed for this review (shown below) was treated to a fresh install of Windows 7 64Bit Home Premium (service pack 1) with all associated Drivers installed. I also ensured that AHCI was set in the UEFI (although this is now the default settings for most modern MBs). The drive was connected to the Intel SATA 3 (6GBs) port (4) of the MSI Z97 GAMING 5 motherboard. No special or other BIOS/UEFI options are required…

Installation is easy and a little unusual, especially if you’ve not fitted one of these types of devices before. The SSD connector is simply slid into the M.2 port (central in the MSI Z97 GAMING 5 motherboard) at an approximately 45 degree angle, the drive can then be hinged down. The SSD is then simply held down by a small screw at the opposite end.

Hardware Performance

We use PCMark 8 to help ascertain Gaming performance. The test used measures the performance of the drive while loading real game data for both World of Warcraft and Battlefield 3. In addition to this we will also use ATTO Disk Benchmark to confirm the drives claimed performance levels.

PCMark 8 Storage Test – Results

Kingston M.2 120GB PCMark 8 Storage Test Results

HyperX Na’Vi 240GB PCMark 8 Storage Test Results

ADATA mSATA SX300 64GB PCMark 8 Storage Test Results

Kingston 200V+ 60GB PCMark 8 Storage Test Results

Western Digital Black 1TB PCMark 8 Storage Test Results

Drive

World of Warcraft (Load Time)

Battlefield 3 (Load Time)

Kingston M.2 120GB

58.5 s

134.0 s

ADATA mSATA SX300 64GB (SSD)

59.0 s

136.7 s

Kingston HyperX Na’Vi Limited Edition 240GB (SSD)

59.2 s

137.6 s

Kingston 200V+ 60GB (SSD)

59.8 s

138.2 s

Western Digital Black 1TB (HDD)

123.6 s

303.9 s

As you can see from the data above pretty much all of the SSD based drives put in similar performances, although it’s still worth noting that the Kingston M.2 120GB SSD is actually now the fastest drive tested here at pcG. An that’s pretty impressive for such an unassuming looking device. The difference between an SSD and a HDD can clearly be seen with the Western Digital 1TB HDD being over twice as slow…

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Kingston M.2 120GB – SSD

Kingston HyperX NaVi 240GB – SSD

ADATA SX300 64GB – SSD

Kingston 200V+ 60GB – SSD

Western Digital Black 1TB – HDD

In the pure throughput test (using ATTO Disk Benchmark) the Kingston M.2 120GB SSD matches its quoted Read (550GB/s) and Write (520GB/s) with 552,841 and 521,233. As you can see from these tests there’s no drawback that we can see from using a device such as this M.2 drive from Kingston. It certainly makes a normal 2.5″ SSD look like an awful waste of space, that’s for sure… 😉

Final Thoughts

Put simply the Kingston M.2 120GB SSD is an extremely impressive piece of kit, proving at least as good as mSATA drives we have seen in the past.

Performance is also impeccable, with both the Battlefield 3 and World of Warcraft PCMark 8 tests showing the best performance we have yet seen here at pcG.

We have always been a fan of mSATA and now M.2 drives for mainstream desktop PCs, mainly due to the convenience and the complete lack of wiring that’s required. To be honest you wouldn’t even know it was there. Consider that these drives will come later in capacities up to (and no doubt beyond) 1TB and transfer speeds up to 10 GB/s (M.2 PCIe only). I feel the time of the M.2 drives is now; well I hope it is anyway…

Of course all this miniaturization comes at a cost with the Kingston M.2 120GB SSD commanding approximately £10 more than its 2.5″ partner. Money well spent in my mind! Come on, none of us like those damn SATA power cables with all their connectors sticking out, do we… 😉